


Hero

by eyra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Eating Disorders, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyra/pseuds/eyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a truth uncontested in Gryffindor Tower that Sirius Black had issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero

It was a truth uncontested in Gryffindor Tower that Sirius Black had Issues. Everybody knew it, just as everybody knew of the Black family and their pureblood mania, their lineage of madness that trickled down like a poison through each new generation of heirs. Of Orion’s shadowy involvement with equally shadowy organisations, and of Walburga’s affinity for another glass of Firewhiskey, and who was there to care if that meant she forgot her own sons’ names from time to time? The First and Second years knew it from the purple bruises they gawped at around Sirius’s grey eyes when he returned from the summer break, and the way he glowered at them when he caught them looking. The Sixth and Seventh years knew it too, but they also knew better than to stare.

James Potter had known it since week one, term one, year one, when Sirius had mentioned in an offhand way that he’d never been hugged by his mother, and _what was that like, James?_ He’d known it again in Easter term, third year, when he’d caught Sirius playing with a muggle lighter atop the astronomy tower, flicking the tiny steel wheel and letting the blue-hued flame lick languidly at the underside of his own arm and _what are you_ doing _, Sirius?_ He’d still known it on October 4th, sixth year, when he’d glanced over his shoulder whilst sitting on his bed working on a Charms essay, and seen the way Sirius’s paper-thin, spectrally pale skin stretched painfully across his too-visible rib cage and no, Sirius doesn’t want to go for lunch with him because he has to go to the library, just like yesterday, and the day before that.

 

“Try a bit of this chicken, mate,” as he pushes the pewter serving bowl an inch closer to Sirius’s empty plate, whilst Sirius gazes tiredly across the hall towards the Slytherin table.

“You should go to bed, Sirius,” as he dispassionately strips off his Quidditch robes after a brutal defeat by Ravenclaw that should never have happened, whilst Sirius bites his bottom lip because this is _his_ fault, damn it.

“Wake the _fuck_ up, Pads,” as his heart lurches and he has to swallow down bile, whilst Sirius lies limp in his arms on the stone floor of the Potions lab and Professor Slughorn tells Marlene McKinnon to get Madam Pomfrey, _quickly._

 

Remus knows it by the ever-sharper angles of Sirius’s hips as they both pant heavily against a silencing charm in the stifling heat of Remus’s four-poster, and the way Sirius can no longer look at Remus afterwards, and how Remus isn’t even sure it’s his name spilling from his friend’s lips now as he tips over the edge into an oblivion that seems to leech all the energy from him, leaving him vacant and wordless for hours.

He knows it when Sirius crawls into his bed in the early hours of one November morning, his eyes red-rimmed and his skin laced with a scent familiar yet not his own, not Sirius. But close. Too close.

Remus never asks, but when he steals away in James’s invisibility cloak to trail Sirius to the disused bathroom at the end of the East corridor on the third floor and hears twin voices from inside the middle stall, he can’t find it in himself to be surprised.

“Go on,” the first voice whispers. “Show me how.”

“Please don’t do this, Regs,” the second voice pleads, fragile almost beyond recognition. “You don’t have to do this, too.”

A desolate sob then a soft, coaxing answer, _“We can do it together,”_ and then the acrid smell of vomit hits Remus’s senses, turning his stomach - already delicate ahead of tonight’s moon - and he barely remembers how he made it back to Gryffindor Tower in time for his knees to buckle against the cold furnishings of Sirius’s unmade bed.

 

Regulus is in the hospital wing by the time the first snowfall comes, and Sirius keeps vigil by his bedside, one frail hand clasped desperately around Regulus’s bony wrist, the other carding pale and trembling fingers through his brother’s fine, lank hair, fanned out across the white pillow in what Sirius fancies is a halo of which there is nobody more deserving. They’re both allowed home come Christmas, and neither James nor Remus receives an owl all holiday, and when the brothers return to Hogwarts on the 1st of January James cries into Lily’s shoulder for over an hour because _that can’t be him, Lily, it just can’t._

 

It’s a bitter Tuesday night in early February that Remus takes the Cloak and follows Sirius again, down to the kitchens then back up to an old staff quarters in the Divination tower, a single candle picking out the dust and the cobwebs and the cracked glass window whilst Sirius sits silently on the edge of a coverless mattress. Remus already knows what – or rather, who – they’re waiting for, and there’s a bed in the room and a lock on the door and perhaps tonight Remus will at last bear witness to what he knows has been going on for months, and Remus knows he should leave, because he knows he won’t stop them, and that’s exactly why he has to stay.

Half an hour passes, and the door creaks open leaving a too-narrow gap that tiny Regulus still slides through with alarming ease. He holds one hand to his chest as he walks now, dark shadows to match his brother’s beneath his grey eyes which turn guarded and accusatory when they fall on the linen parcel Sirius is holding.

“Please,” Sirius whispers, his voice as frail as Remus has unknowingly become accustomed to of late, his fingers fumbling clumsily as he unwraps a plain ham sandwich from the white napkin in his lap.

“ _Please_ ,” he repeats.

Regulus shakes his head obstinately, one emaciated hand still clutched to his sternum; Remus can see from his vantage point by the bare hearth that the boy is on the edge of tears.

“I just wanted to be like you,” he answers weakly, and the parcel of food falls to the worn stone floor as Sirius sobs into his trembling hands, and Remus knows they’re all beyond saving now.


End file.
